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25.01.2009

Vibration training doesn't help muscle retention

Use a vibration plate, and your muscles will become automatically bigger and stronger. This is what so many fitness centres still hold out as a promise to their lazier members who can't be bothered to really train. Neither these fitness centres nor their lazier clients will rejoice when they read about research done at the Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt, published this month in the European Journal of Applied Physiology.

It's just as well that those who prefer the lazy way of working out don't read the European Journal of Applied Physiology. According to the study we're talking about, vibration traininghas no effect. Nada. Nothing.

The researchers are working on ways to help space travellers maintain physical condition. There is no gravity in space and as a result astronauts lose muscle strength rapidly. After some long space trips astronauts have even had to learn to walk again because their legs could no longer carry their body. The Germans wanted to know if they could improve matters by installing vibration plates in spacecraft.

To simulate the effects of space travel, the researchers confined young men aged 26 to bed for two weeks. The men were not allowed to walk or sit up. That's a sure way of reducing leg muscle mass.

Some of the men had to use a Galileo 900 twice a day. Each time they were given five one-minute sessions of 20 Hz vibrations, with 2 to 4 mm amplitude. The subjects were also given a belt to wear, which had a weight equivalent to fifteen percent of the men's bodyweight attached to it. The men kept their knees bent at a 30 degree angle.

And voila. The figure below shows the effect of two weeks of bed rest on the leg muscle mass.

The vibration plate did not stop the leg extensor muscles – the quads – from losing mass. The vibration plate had no effect on the calf muscles either. And the knee flexor mass – the biceps of the leg – had decreased even faster as a result of the vibration plate.

Aha.

So it's clear: we can forget about vibration plates.

Sources:
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2009 Jan;105(2):271-7.

More:
Muscles use up ATP quicker on vibration plate 01.12.2008